Quotes from Toxic Sludge is Good for You!

Every big media event needs what journalists and flacks alike
refer to as the “the hook.” An ideal hook becomes
the central element of a story that makes it newsworthy, evokes
a strong emotional response, and sticks in the memory. In the
case of the Gulf War, the “hook” was invented by
Hill & Knowlton [a PR firm]. In style, substance and mode
of delivery, it bore an uncanny resemblance to England’s World
War I hearings that accused German soldiers of killing babies.

“… Lying under oath in front of a congressional
committee is a crime; lying from under the cover of anonymity to
a caucus is merely public relations.”82

In fact, the emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came
from a 15-year-old Kuwati girl, known only by her first name of
Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah’s full name was being
kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family
in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen
with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written
testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for
a Free Kuwait [a front group created by the PR firm]. “I
volunteered at the al-Addan hospital,” Nayirah said.
“While I was there, I saw Iraqi soldiers come into the
hospital with guns, and go into the room where … babies
were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators,
took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to
die.”83

Three months passed between Nayirah’s testimony and the start of
the war. During those months, the story of the babies torn from
their incubators was repeated over and over again. President
Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional
testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security
Council. “Of all the accusations made against the
dictator,” MacArthur observed, “none had more impact
than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their
incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors
of Kuwait City.”84

At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and
Congressman Lantos failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of
the Kuwati Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir
al-Sabah, Kuwait’s Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in
the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed
to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had
coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwati’s own investigators
later confirmed was false testimony.

Chapter Ten, The Torturers’ Lobby

In fact, the corporate victory [over the greens] was so complete
that the public relations industry was quietly advising its
corporate clients to refrain from gloating.

Chapter Nine, Silencing Spring

Corporations have found that one good way to curry favors with
the media is to court individual journalists who have become
media celebrities, offering them large sums of money for a brief
appearance and talk. … More recently, Political
Finance & Lobby Reporter noted in June 1995 that
“ABC News’ Cokie Roberts accepted a $35,000 fee for a
speech last May to the Junior League of Greater Fort Lauderdale
that was subsidized by JM Family Enterprises, a privately-held
$4.2 billion company that distributes Toyotas. … Roberts
refused to discuss her speaking fee. ‘She feels strongly
that it’s not something that in any way, shape or form should be
discussed in public,’ ABC spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said
when American Journalism Review reporter Alicia
Shephard requested an interview.”39